His first unenviable task was to clear up the fallout and steady the ship, yet he immediately created contversy in his first press conference.
Hamilton and Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff refused to attend the FIA gala that night in protest of the Abu Dhabi events, breaking rules that require the presence of the top three drivers in the championship and the constructors’ title winners.
Inevitably, Ben Sulayem was asked whether Hamilton would be punished for this transgression. Rather than defusing the situation, he said: “We have to follow our rules. But it doesn’t stop us from making a champion feel good about the sport. It’s easy to be nice to people. But definitely if there is any breach, there is no forgiveness in this.”
In the end no action was taken but it set the tone for the months to come.
Fallout over Abu Dhabi
January 2023
Concerns continued to grow with the handling of the fall-out from Abu Dhabi. Todt’s last act as president was to launch an inquiry, but it took two months before the FIA took any official action, removing Masi and announcing a restructure of race control, and a further month before the report was published.
It talked of “human error” and said Masi had not operated the safety car according to the regulations. But many regarded its conclusions as insubstantial and failing to get to the heart of what had gone wrong.
Hamilton row as FIA clamps down on jewellery
April 2022
The FIA chose to make an issue of drivers wearing jewellery and non-regulation underwear during races. Existing rules banned the practice, but did not appear to have been enforced for years until they were raised at the Autralian Grand Prix and presented as the wish of new race director Niels Wittich. The suggestion in the paddock was that this was being pushed by Ben Sulayem.
The predictable effect was to create a stand-off with Lewis Hamilton, who said that his nose ring could not be removed easily, while the FIA insisted that all of its rules should be followed.
A compromise was reached with a series of medical exemptions for the seven-time world champion but was only resolved at the British Grand Prix in July when Hamilton confirmed that the ring had been removed.
FIA and F1 clash over additional sprint race
April 2022
Ben Sulayem blocked a unanimous agreement between the teams and F1 to increase the number of sprint races in 2023 from three to six. P
Publicly, he said he wanted time to analyse its effect on workload at race control, but teams quickly briefed that he had asked the F1 to increase the fee it pays to the FIA to run race weekends. “This might be the first stand-off of many between the F1 and FIA,” wrote Chris Medland at the time.
Controversies escalate in first presidential interview
June 2022
In his first interview as president, Ben Sulayem seemed to indicate that he was not in favour of drivers speaking out on political and social issues.